PART I.
GETTING STARTED
SOME PEOPLE FALL in love with photography at a young age and decide to make it a career and then stick to that plan. Some find its magic later in life, while still others suppress the desire to work in a creative field and devote their education to a âsafeâ profession with a nine-to-five workday, only to discover that theyâre unhappy with that cautious choice.
The good news is that it doesnât matter when you decide to become a professional photographer. The important thing is that you act on the impulse and get started. There are plenty of pathways into the field and there are no formal education requirements. In Part I, four photographers explore the flexibility of a career in photography and examine various educational options. Chuck DeLaney addresses the flexibility of career pathways in photography and the fact that the person who takes great pictures and has the right attitude can succeed with very little formal education. He also provides some thoughts about how freelancers getting started can save money on equipment. Bill Kennedy details what to expect in different education settings, including the âopen enrollmentâ opportunities at the School of Hard Knocks. For anyone considering a two- or four-year college major in photography, this chapter is essential reading. John Kieffer explores the many benefits of serving an apprenticeship as a photographerâs assistant.
Veteran travel photographer Susan McCartney contributes her classic essay on the principal photographic specialties and explains why specialization is beneficial for many photographers. In some fields, such as photojournalism for newspapers and Internet sites covering medium- and smaller-sized markets, photographers will find it necessary to master several different skills like portraiture and still-life photography as well as covering breaking news. Online sites that specialize in selling stock photography have changed the landscape for photographers seeking to sell stock images.
The Internet has fueled the need for photographs, as the 24/7/365 content cycle requires frequent refreshment of visual imagery for every story. Whether the topic is the winner of a national election or the death of a famous person, large online publications will change and update the images that accompany the story frequently. This means that many of the specialties that McCartney describes have grown and mutated to address the needs of blogs and social media. The number of celebrity photographers continues to grow to meet the insatiable demand of a curious world. Sport photography is another area where online coverage has increased the need for photographs to be posted on the web at frequent intervals during every major event.
CHAPTER 1 | CAREERS IN PHOTOGRAPHY |
by Chuck DeLaney
This chapter is adapted from Photography Your Way by Chuck DeLaney, a freelance photographer and writer based in New York City. He served as director of the New York Institute of Photography, Americaâs oldest and largest photography school, for many years and has devoted his career to adult education in photography and other fields.
IN MY LIBRARY, I have a number of books that are traditional career guides in photography. Most of these books survey various fieldsâportraiture, medical photography, photojournalism, commercial and industrial photographyâand discuss the requirements, job opportunities, and financial prospects of each area.
Thatâs not my approach. I firmly believe that photography is a passion and that during one photographerâs lifetime the career activities are likely to meld into one another. If you were going to be a doctor, you would need to choose a specialty, such as cardiology or nephrology or psychiatry, and would probably devote many years of training to that specialty. In all likelihood, you would then practice that specialty for the rest of your life.
Similarly, if you want to make a lot of money, you might go to business school or law school, but probably not both. After that training, you would go out and have a career âin businessâ or âin law.â Then youâd (hopefully) grow old, retire, and then die, perhaps with money to leave to your heirs.
PHOTOGRAPHY IS DIFFERENT
To me, thatâs not what a lifetime in photography is about. Sure, it can be a way to make money, but thereâs also a lot of fun and adventure to be had, a lot of opportunities to express yourself and your unique point of view, and the chance to change what you do as you go along. Why do one thing all your life? If you want to do that, itâs fine, but even if you train to become, say, a medical photographer and then work in hospitals for your entire work life, thatâs no reason you cannot involve yourself with all sorts of other photographic endeavors at night, on weekends, and on vacation.
Thatâs the beauty of photographyâthe vocational goals are hazy, and the training in photography technique and technology doesnât need to be that extensive in most fields. You can be a medical photographer during the workweek and pursue fine art or animal photography on the weekend. Try being a lawyer during the week and a brain surgeon on weekendsâit wonât work. The requirements, and limits, of many fields are set in stone.
To that end, I view photography more as a lifestyle than as a career. Thereâs no sense of either/or. You can be a medical photographer and a wedding photographer. You can be a photojournalist and a child photographer. Itâs up to you. You may not leave a fortune to your children, but youâll lead a rich life and possibly leave behind images that will have both monetary and social value. Thatâs sure not a bad life to have lived.
PHOTOGRAPHY AS A CREATIVE OUTLET
And, letâs not write off all those doctors, lawyers, and MBAs either. There are many professionals in a host of fields who turn to photography to get the creative and expressive satisfaction that their âprofessionâ may not be able to deliver.
So letâs start with the basics. Weâre photographers and weâre involved with a very powerful forceâphotography. And we have the opportunity to shape our careers as we go along. But before you can bask in the potential of photography, locate your interests, and find success in one or more fields, it is essential to address three things: (1) the nature of this magical medium; (2) what you really want to get out of photography and what skills you bring to the table; and (3) what holds you back as a photographer and as a human being and the negative emotions that may confuse and inhibit you.
THE NATURE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
I love photography. I make images almost every day, and I respect the power, science, art, and magic of the medium. I once took a Christmas-greeting portrait on Polaroid film for a young man who was in prison. It took me three minutes at most. Six weeks later the prisoner told me that he had sent it to his deathly ill grandmother who hadnât seen him in the ten years heâd been in prison. Shortly after the photo arrived, she died. Among her last requests was to be buried with the portrait I made of her grandson.
To me, thatâs powerful. I make images. I show people things. I capture their emotions and expressions, their memories, their past, the things they love. Sometimes I try to express my emotions in my photographs. Maybe, one of my photos will help change something in the world for the better.
And people pay me to do this!
Another key part of what I love about photography is that it is so democratic and accessible. The equipment isnât that expensive, and a lot of equipment isnât necessary anyway. There are many ways to get the training you need, and thereâs opportunity for you regardless of gender, race, or physical ability.
I know photographers who work from wheelchairs. There are photographers who are legally blind. I have had students over the years who were recovering from serious illness or injuries and who turned to photography as a way to reconstruct their lives. When I started teaching I worked for the nonprofit Floating Foundation of Photography, which ran photography courses in prisons and mental hospitals. Photography can help you grow. And, I know from experience, it can help you heal.
And people looking at your photos wonât necessarily know if youâre black or white, if youâre female or male, or whether you used a Canon or a Nikon. They wonât know if you went to college or learned photography in prison.
I recall a television interview with the late Danny Kaye, a performer with many talents. In talking about his interests, he made a very simple but profound statement: âIf you can find the form of self-expression thatâs best for you, then youâve got it made.â
A CAREER TO THE END
Thereâs one other great aspect of photography. Thereâs no need to retire. Opera singers, supermodels, athletesâeven the sharks and traders on Wall Streetâall have a prime. When they can no longer take the rigors or hit the high notes, or when the ânew (and younger) faceâ retires the supermodel who may be âover the hillâ in her mid-twenties, itâs time to move on.
Not so with photography. You can take great photos while leaning on a cane. Photography will never desert you. How many of us are lucky enough to find a lifelong friend?
For me, thatâs photography. My guess is, itâs photography for you too. Now that youâve found your method of expression, the trick is to move forward and stay optimistic. Perhaps, as you grow, you may find photography is not for you or that thereâs something better. Then the trick is to move on to that better something. This is not unheard of in creative professions. For example, the great artist Marcel Duchamp, a pioneer of the Dada movement, gave up making art altogether and turned his passion to chess in his later years. The wonderful French photographer Jacques Lartigue turned to painting in midlife. Not long ago I read the obituary of Myron âScottieâ Scott, who started out as a news photographer and happened to take a few feature photographs of some kids who had made a toy car out of a soapbox and a set of buggy wheels. He went on to become the founder and guiding light of the Soapbox Derby.
WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM PHOTOGRAPHY?
Knowing what areas of photography are of interest to you isnât always that easy. One problem is that the world of photographic specialties and professional practitioners is highly segmented, particularly in the way photography is taught. There isnât a lot of crossover. For the most part, those in fashion know of their predecessors and peers but are clueless about the history of photojournalists or portraitists. The couple running a portrait studio in Des Moines probably donât know the names of the hotshot fine-art photographers who are currently in demand in New York and Los Angeles.
The key to learning about what possibilities exist out there is to look at other photographers from either the recent past or from prior generations. Thereâs no career guide better than learning about the lives and looking at the works of others who devoted themselves to the pursuit of photography.
Michelangelo, known to most of us for his skills as a sculptor and painter, also wrote poetry. One of his sonnets muses on the potential in a block of marble. Every possible sculpture is contained within that block; the sculptor need only remove the bits of marble that arenât part of that sculpture!
Photography is like that block of marble. It offers everything you could possibly desire. Sometimes it may be easier to determine what you donât want and then make your way toward the areas that are left.
THE NEGATIVE STUFF
Weâre all susceptible to negative feelings, but until those emotions are examined and either eradicated or put in their place, the good stuff is hard to access in a sustained, trustworthy way. And those despairing gremlins do have a way of popping up again and again, for all of us.
Thatâs important to remember. There may be a few enlightened souls who have put the dark stuff behind them foreverâconclusivelyâand with no hitches. But for most of us, those negative feelings are like housefliesâyou never get rid of every single one of them, you just keep them under control.
Over the course of my career, Iâve slowly come to realize how many peopleânot just photographers but all kinds of peopleâtake themselves off the playing field, fold their hand, and ask to be dealt out of the game. They end up bitter, befuddled, or beaten. Or, if theyâre lucky, just depressed. And they did it to themselves! Well, the hell with that!
A lot of our emotions come out as anger when dealing with customers and suppliers. As youâll see, there are a few situations where you can go ahead and blow your top, and other times when you have to take it easy. There are times to talk and times when the trick is to stay silent.
Occasionally, as you go along, you may find yourself thrown to the ground. Maybe you can pull this book out and reread a few sections and get up, brush yourself off, get back in the game, and get even with those that threw you.
This discussion of negative stuff is written with the wish that it will help you stay in the game right up to the end, that it will help you absorb the bumps, learn to analyze the self-inflicted ones so as to keep them to a minimum, and figure out how to handle those dealt you by others.
FIGHTING THE âIF ONLYSâ
Photography is an elusive undertaking. As a form of self-expression, it can fool many people. Itâs easy to get good, to take technically okay photographsâto record a sharp, well-exposed image of something.
But itâs a lot harder to get really good, and for the gifted, itâs even harder to get great. Itâs hard to get other people to take your photography seriously. There are business and financial considerations involved. There are a lot of rejections along the way. Any of these factors can lead to distracted, depressed thinking, a lot of âif onlysâ:
âą If only I had better equipment
âą If only I had her contacts
âą If only I had his sales technique
âą If only I had gone to that school
âą If only I could be published in that magazine
And one of the worst:
âą If only I hadnât screwed up that job
You can fritter away an entire lifetime dealing with the âif onlys,â but this seduction must be avoided. Itâs not that hard once you see them for what they are, but itâs also one of the reasons that, if youâre not careful, photography can make you crazy.
ITâS ATTITUDE, NOT SUCCESS, THAT COUNTS
In fact, I know many successful photographers who are still hounded by âif onlysââwhat they havenât accomplished or the people who donât respect themârather than basking in their considerable achievements. And these arenât just run-of-the-mill photographers. I know of one fabulously successful commercial and editorial photographer who is obsessed with getting major shows for his work in recognized fine art museums. He wonât rest until heâs secured that reputation. Iâve also met a very successful nature photographer who expressed to me his need to prove himself to his colleagues although he has legions of admirers. âThey still think Iâm a techno-geek,â he told me.
I believe that there is no one way of being. If thatâs what these photographers want to do, if those are goals of their choosing, and as long as it is a choice and not an obsession, then thatâs OK.
And, while it can be obsessive at the top, it can be lonely when youâre starting out. Photographers spend a lot of time aloneâworking, traveling, in the studio, or in ...